I encourage you to read Mark Galli’s essay, “Insignificant Is Beautiful.” An excerpt:
I have a good friend who has been caring for his elderly mother. She sits in a wheel chair, complains a lot, and requires constant attention—to the point of cleaning her up after regular bouts of diarrhea. What my friend and his wife are doing is heroic, virtue with a capital V. But it is hard to see how it is “significant” or “world changing” as we normally think about such things.
When we think of making a difference, we think about making the world a better place for the next generation, not caretaking people who have no future. This is one reason we are quick to push the incontinent into “managed care” staffed with “skilled nurses.” No question that this is indeed a necessary move for many families—I had to do it with my own father, sad to say. But let’s face it. A fair amount of our motive is mixed. How much skill does it take to clean up excrement from an elderly body? Mostly it takes forbearance—and a willingness to give oneself night and day to something that, according to our usual reckoning, is not all that significant.
Another quote:
We should honor any generation that strives for significance, especially if it is a longing to make a difference in the world. Better this than striving to make money and live a comfortable life! But the human heart is desperately wicked and the human soul subject to self-deception, and this colors even our highest aspirations. Even the best of intentions mask the mysterious darkness within, which is why we need to be healed also of our best intentions.
An excellent article… thanks for pointing it out. The other day we posted on Onesiphorus, one of the Apostle Paul’s friends. It’s kind of in the same vein as this article, I think.
Though seemingly insignificant, this man made a huge impact on Paul at just the right time: http://www.themidnightcry.com/2010/10/faithful-men.
Always a much-needed reminder. Thanks, Justin. In a class on Jonathan Edwards, John Hannah once said, “We fear insignificance. But what we really fear is that God might call us to do something that He calls significant but we don’t.”
Good gracious, this is a kick in the head.
I have spent the past….15 years caring for my parents. My mother died of end stage Alzheimer’s in early 08. I live in my dad’s home and care for him, my husband of 28 years lives in another city and we see each other only on the weekends. It has been a long journey with twists and turns, bumps, dry spells, storms. Yet, I am so grateful to have had the honor of caring for my parents.
Thank you for this article!